Pavel Bulygin’s Abyssinian poems in the magazine “Rubezh” (Border) (Harbin, 1935–1936)

The article is devoted to the Abyssinian poems by Pavel Bulygin, a poet and a prose writer who left Russia after the revolution, whose poems were published in Harbin weekly “Rubezh” (Border) (1935–1936). Exotic motives are analysed in the poet's work, for whom, following Nikolay Gumilyov, Africa became a “guiding star”: Bulygin's collection of poems “Alien Stars” is dedicated to Abyssinia – the name of the cycle clearly refers to Gumilyov's “Alien Sky”. Special attention is paid to the May issue of “Rubezh” (1936), where Bulygin’s five poems from the cycle “Alien Stars” were published under the general title “The poems about Abyssinia”. These texts are considered as a microcycle, united thematically – Bulygin's poetic bestiary is described, focused on Gumilyov in many respects; the literary nature of the poet's affection to African travels is noted not only through Gumilyov’s lyrics, but also through James Fenimore Cooper and Jack London’s adventure novels; it is pointed out that the poet uses the technique of “imaginary” ekphrasis, when instead of a really existing picture, his own one is recreated – poetic and as if picturesque at the same time. In addition to the publication in the May issue of “Rubezh” in 1936, there are Bulygin’s works, published in Harbin weekly in 1935 (“Saw Gin” (“Hyena-Man”), “Russian in Abyssinia”, “From a heated red stone...”). Immersion in African topos, warmed for Bulygin by Gumilyov's poetry and travels, helps the emigrant poet escape from loneliness, anguish and nostalgia.

Savagery and Nationalism: Native Americans and Popular Fiction

This chapter explores British popular writing. It considers some of the means by which stereotypes of Indians that emanated from the United States circulated within Britain and were modified and filtered through domestic concerns. The chapter first assesses the influence that James Fenimore Cooper had on transatlantic adventure and historical fiction, and then pass to Charles Dickens's often contradictory treatments of native peoples, before looking at the more complicated case of Mayne Reid. This British writer of popular Westerns employed contemporary American-generated stereotypes of Indians and at times reinforced that country's message of manifest destiny, yet he also managed to question certain political and racial aspects of American life in a way that offered up a warning to his home readership. These stereotypes are read through a consideration of the shifting nuances of the idea of the “savage” in mid-Victorian Britain.

James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was reared in Cooperstown, a central New York State community founded by his father after a large land purchase in what was then the frontier. The area is now categorized as part of Northern Appalachia. Cooper is best known for the five novels in his “Leatherstocking Tales” series, which explore life on the American frontier....

Multiple Views of the Glimmerglass in the Coopers’ Otsego Lake Writings

Focusing on Otsego Lake, named as the Glimmerglass, this paper attempts to offer a further insight into the mode of perceiving and imagining the lake scenery. To get a full picture, the case studies include both fictional and non-fictional works, concerning three generations’ male and female perspectives from James Fenimore Cooper, his father and his eldest daughter. The specific study adopts a method of being “descriptive and phonomenological” (Hodder, 2001, p. 23). By citing and juxtaposing relative writings, it tries to relive the multiple views of the Glimmerglass and examine particularly the person’s immediate responses to the lake, which might demonstrate the decisive transformation of his or her consciousness. The study finds that although multiple views of a lake are involved in perceiving and imagining its scenery, which combine to make a full picture and bring in rich experiences, the close-up views preferred in The Deerslayer can denote more immediate responses to the lakesape, and accordingly with more engagement and even immersion in the environment an encounter of a lake might become an insider, who, with a “sympathy for mystic states” (Hodder, 2001, p. 21) might regain a sense of homecoming or dwelling.